LOST ENDING REVEALED

 Binge watching and streaming services has all but killed the long, episodic American television series.  Darling series like Squid Game, a 9 episode kill-fest, keeps Netflix rolling with content. LOST also had its Battle Royale elements with the Others and the Smoke Monster, but not in a concentrated form like SG.

Nonetheless, SG won international fans for the Korean horror-action-game series. One major point was that in the end - - - there was an end! A winner! A clear conclusion!

In the early century, LOST and the Sopranos did something highly unusual: infuriate long time fans with strange endings. LOST's last season sideways arc will always be debated as a bad re-set by writers who wrote themselves into a corner with no way out. LOST never got the clear ending that now another show.

The Sopranos ended with a jarring, sudden cut to black screen.

The crime family was having dinner in a small restaurant when the door opens. Boom - -  no noise, no clue, just a black screen. The End. Fans debated for years what it meant. Did Tony did whacked? Did the family break up? Did nothing happen? Did the creators not know how to end the show?

Show runner David Chase recently spoke to Hollywood Reporter about the show and its ending. Chase said that 2 years before the ending, he was driving from NYC to New Jersey as Tony Soprano often did in the series. He saw a small road side diner. In his head, he thought that would make a good location for Tony's final demise. Yes, Chase always thought that Tony was going to die in the finale. It was just when and where. 

The article stated:

"Because the scene I had in my mind was not that scene. Nor did I think of cutting to black. I had a scene in which Tony comes back from a meeting in New York in his car. At the beginning of every show, he came from New York into New Jersey, and the last scene could be him coming from New Jersey back into New York for a meeting at which he was going to be killed. Yeah. But I think I had this notion—I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport and I saw a little restaurant. It was kind of like a shack that served breakfast. And for some reason I thought, “Tony should get it in a place like that.” Why? I don’t know. That was, like, two years before."

Chase said, "I had no idea it would cause that much—I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about The Sopranos. It was kind of incredible to me. But I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me."

THE END REVEALED BY A SLIP OF THE TONGUE

When the Sopranos ended its television run, it did so in such a fashion that it had its fandom up-in-arms, cursing and wondering what the hell happened to their favorite show. It ended with a hard cut to black. No one knew what would have happened next even though the episode built up to a climatic ending. Boom, without warning, the series ended.

With this type of controversial ending now possible, LOST fans worried that its show runners would also try to pull a large "fake out" to avoid answering the calls of diehard fans for answers to the key mysteries.

The writers did try to get out of years of story layers when they thrust upon us the flashforward universe, where the characters were living different lives but apparently in the same island time frame. It began to call into question whether the flashbacks were actually truthful portrayals of the characters prior to the crash landing on the island. For if the flashforwards were not "real" in the sense that that universe was merely a holding world until the souls of the friends could reunite in the after life, then the same could have been true of the flashbacks (which contained some serious medical and legal errors). If the flashbacks were a dream state, what was the island? A collective dream state or purgatory as speculated by some season one viewers.

LOST viewers never got the clarity from the producers about the last season. We were merely told that the show was always "character focused" so they did not have to answer the complaints.

After many years of debate, Soprano fans got their answer. From recent NY Post article:

The Sopranos” creator David Chase accidentally spoiled the finale during a leaked interview for  his book celebrating the Emmy-winning HBO mob drama.

At the end of 2007’s final episode, titled “Made in America,” Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini) is eating out with his family amid a turf war between the New Jersey and New York Mafia families while an enemy hit man waits in their midst.

The screen then fades to black as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” blares on the soundtrack, leaving it ambiguous whether the show’s star gets whacked — until now.

Spoiler alert: In the roundtable discussion, co-author Alan Sepinwall asked Chase, “When you said there was an end point, you don’t mean Tony at Holsten’s [the diner], you just meant, ‘I think I have two more years’ worth of stories left in me.’ ”

Then Chase, 74, dropped the bombshell: “Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end … But we didn’t do that.”

Noticing his epic leak, co-author Matt Zoller Seitz chimed in: “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene.”

“F - - k you guys,” replied Chase upon realizing his blunder.

THE END GAME

The Sopranos, the crime family drama, is having its 20th anniversary. Some reports state that there may be a sequel in the form of a prequel that begins where the original show ended (in a diner with a jolting, quick fade to black).

It was that ending that inspired other creative types (writers and show runners) to mess with their audience. One of the prime directives of a writer is to tell a compelling and interesting story through characters and their actions. There is a beginning introduction, a middle part of conflict and options for resolution, and a climatic ending to resolve the main plot points of the show. Usually, the ending involves the main character learning a valuable lesson or makes a statement on social commentary. In essence, that is the unwritten entertainment contract between show and its viewers. But the Sopranos ending changed that covenant.

The show just . . .  abruptly ended.

It left the world to scratch their heads in disbelief. What just happened? Something was about to happen. What was going to happen?

Then a simmering vent of anger; WTF?

Because viewers spent a lot of time on getting to know the characters, follow the story, "experience" the events shown to them, they felt entitled to a proper ending. That is not to say they are guaranteed a "good" ending.

Viewers fumed because they thought they were "played" by the writers. Or that the writers "copped" out on wrapping up the loose ends of the plot lines so they just decided to leave everyone, including the characters, hanging in limbo.

Hollywood creative types loved the idea of an ambiguous ending. Instead of offending one group of viewers with a creative choice, you can confuse all the viewers with no choice at all.

It gave other shows the license and cover to not wrap up story lines. In a complex, tangential world of LOST, that is how the writers got out of the corner they painted themselves in. Instead of answering the big questions, they punted with a side world reboot to give the main characters a happy ending (or so it seemed). But that made many viewers madder than a hornet. They felt let down, betrayed by a series that they embraced and discussed in minute detail with friends and other fans.

It was like reading a great novel, only to find out that the last chapter is missing.

In today's more fragmented entertainment consumption model (on demand, binge watching), shows probably cannot get away with this type of shocking ending.

X-FILES LOST FINALE

In the world of nostalgic reboots, X-Files would have been an easy choice. It was a network cult sci-fi series. The original creator was on board. The original cast was on board. But this 6 episode miniseries was totally overboard.

Instead of one continuous six hour plot, it had a shotgun approach of several desperate stories which in themselves had no climax or interwove connections. The last two episodes were a trial balloon for a younger spin-off series starring agents Miller and Einstein, younger clones of Mulder and Scully.

As a result, the charm, the humor and intensity of the original series was lost. Only one episode that dealt with werewolves had any resemblance to the old series.

In the rapid fire finale, science snapped its finger to make an alleged miracle vaccine in a matter of minutes, then a desperate race by Scully to find a dying Mulder. But the big questions of why the pandemic started and how was behind it were left in the darkness of the viewer's confused imagination.

But worse was the LOST ending, where the light from above followed the camera directly into Agent Scully's right eye. Cut to black. Sopranos-style open ended ending. Terrible.

You don't know who is commanding the space ship. You don't know if they are present to help or hurt Mulder or Scully. You don't know whether they are aliens or the government.

As consumers of popular entertainment, viewers are entitled to a story that contains a beginning, a middle and an end.

A cliffhanger is a literary cop-out by the writer-creator. It is horrible trend that needs to put out to pasture just as this miniseries has done with the X-Files franchise.

THE SUDDEN END

LOST's writing and creative staff admired how The Sopranos ended even though it left many viewers and critics baffled by it.

The Sopranos was one of the most controversial endings in television history. The camera suddenly cuts to black after a quick shot of Tony Soprano looking up from his plate of onion rings in a small town New Jersey diner, loyal viewers were left, quite literally, in the dark as to the fate of the beloved/reviled mobster. Did he die? Did he live? No one, except the show’s creator David Chase, knows for sure. In the past, Chase has rebuffed any suggestion of any fan’s conclusion to his series.

That said, in DGA Quarterly, Chase goes into a lengthy, incredibly detailed, and wildly fascinating dissection of this memorable finale. He breaks down the action shot-by-shot, giving hardcore fans unprecedented access into his thought process and directing choices, including some awesome insight into why he chose Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” to score the scene:

I love the timing of the lyric when Carmela enters: ‘Just a small town girl livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ Then it talks about Tony: ‘Just a city boy,’ and we had to dim down the music so you didn’t hear the line, ‘born and raised in South Detroit.’ The music cuts out a little bit there, and they’re speaking over it. ‘He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.’ And that to me was [everything]. I felt that those two characters had taken the midnight train a long time ago. That is their life. It means that these people are looking for something inevitable. Something they couldn’t find. I mean, they didn’t become missionaries in Africa or go to college together or do anything like that. They took the midnight train going anywhere. And the midnight train, you know, is the dark train.

I said to Gandolfini, the bell rings and you look up. That last shot of Tony ends on ‘don’t stop,’ it’s mid-song. I’m not going to go into [if that’s Tony’s POV]. I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people’s minds or maybe everybody’s mind that he was killed … I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I never considered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceiling I was going for at that point, the biggest feeling I was going for, honestly, was don’t stop believing. It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That’s what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it’s really worth it. So don’t stop believing.

To Chase’s credit (and to most people’s frustration), he still does not give a definitive answer as to Tony’s fate. 

Some critics still think the Sopranos ending, like LOST's, was a creative cop-out.  A few infer that the creative minds drew so many plot tangents and mysteries the creator's well had run dry on how to wrap things up. Even LOST's showrunners have stumbled upon the vague explanation that the show's finale was about "bigger questions," like life and death.

What was Chase trying to say? That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short.

Everyone can agree "Life is short," but so is the conclusion of someone's favorite weekly entertainment show. Mankind is all about curiosity, exploration, relationships, causes and effects. And answers - - - we need to continually need to final answers otherwise we would apathy and sink like a shark who stops swimming.

But in the Sopranos ending, viewers had a cue to the long history of gangster film tropes, especially the quaint family diner "hits" by a character's rivals. And many assumed Tony got what he deserved as he looked from his plate when diner door opened . . .  but others could presume a fate worse than death such as the FBI arresting him, or an old girlfriend coming in to make a scene to destroy his family. Which such a sudden ending without more, fans were left to their own imagination to figure out what happened next.

LOST's showrunners also keep going down this path, in interviews saying it was never their intent to answer "all the questions and mysteries."  In fact, they boast proudly of not answering the big questions.  But one of the bargains in the creator-consumer entertainment complex is that the viewer or reader is not to being tricked into thinking that the time, energy and resources given to the show, film or book was for naught. A creator who takes a path of creating mysteries is bound by this implied contract with his audience to answer what he created for them. Despite LOST being a highly fan-interactive show, it was not up to the fans to write their own ending to their series.

Yes, creators and writers have the right to see their personal vision to their end. But then they should at least have the decency to explain their ending to questioning fans. Otherwise, there is a smoldering resentment that carries on long after the series' end.
 

SOMETIMES IT IS BEST TO LEAVE SLEEPING DOGS LIE

Sopranos creator, David Chase, recently stated in a widely circulated interview, on what happened to his iconic characters.

In the finale, Tony's family is at a small restaurant when a menacing group of men approach the front door. As the scene begins to pan for the next explosive scene, the screen goes BLACK. The End. WTH?

It was ballsy, gutsy, and controversial. Why end the series with the biggest mystery and unanswered question of all: what happened next?

LOST's creators always said they were quite impressed by the Sopranos ending. A few even teased that they wished they could make a move like that ending.

The controversial end of the Sopranos left die-hard fans wondering, debating, creating their own theories, yelling, screaming, crying foul and pondering what that hole was going to to be filled with just bitterness. If it sounds familiar, this is the same carnival ride from die hard LOST fans after its finale.

LOST answered some questions, but skirted or refused to address the Big Ones.

The Sopranos left everyone literally in the dark.

Until now.

Chase tells Vox that Tony Soprano did not die in the restaurant scene.

One mystery solved, but more questions arose. Why not? Who were those men? What happened?
It was telling a young child she can have a cookie, but then just give her a picture on one.

The revelation left die-hard fans wondering, debating, creating their own theories, yelling, screaming, crying foul and pondering what that hole was going to to be filled with just confusion.

There really was no reason for the Sopranos creator to make such a statement. It does not help explain the ending at all. It does not give closure to the series that many fans wanted from their show. It sort of rekindles the negative emotions of many fans, who may have moved on after struggling with their own personal resolutions.

Lesson: at times it is better to leave things be, for good or ill.

THE NON-ENDING

TPTB once remarked they liked the ending of The Sopranos. Most Sopranos fans were literally left in the dark as the show abruptly ended. Critics now view this as a non-ending to an otherwise great series. A non-ending does not resolve the series or character development. It leaves the viewer in state of confusion, introspection, and disbelief.

The non-ending is not to be confused with the bad ending. One of the most popular series in TV history, M*A*S*H, ended on a dour and sour conclusion when the main character, Hawkeye, is revealed to have been institutionalized for mental breakdown. He returns to say goodbyes as his hospital unit is dismantled forever. It was a total reversal in the series focal character that it left many people wondering what that was all about. Was it a sledgehammer that war can ruin even the strongest of minds? It was unrealistic and not very rewarding end to a landmark show.

But then again it is difficult to achieve "perfection" in the ending of a television show. Bob Newhart's second comedy series, Bob, ended in such a unique way that it still talked about in television circles today. In Bob, Newhart played an owner-operator of a small New England resort inn. There were many odd characters and quirky situations. This show ended with Newhart waking up in bed, not with his current TV wife, but with Suzanne Pleschette, his original sit-com wife from The Bob Newhart Show.  It was so unexpected it was a stunner to the audience who knew of the old series through current syndication.

Then there are endings that are just sad endings. In Cheers, the characters that made us laugh in the quaint Boston saloon left for the last time, we were left with owner Sam Malone alone behind the bar. In all the years that Malone and his buddies entertained us, and for all the women that Malone had relationships with, in the end he was left alone in his own thoughts. It made one pause to think that throughout the series, the main character was always alone but he was just surrounded by boisterous people.

The LOST finale fits into the sad ending, the bad ending and the non-ending categories depending on one's point of view. Even for those to accept the sideways world conclusion as a "happy" ending for their beloved characters, the situation was clear that all those beloved characters were dead. Dying is sad at any level. For those who did not like the sideways church conclusion, the ending was bad. It did not resolve any of the issues presented in the six seasons leading up to the last episode. Then there are those who do not know what to believe. The ending was a non-event to them. It was a reunion, but with people who should not be together. Was this ending a literary double cross or was this vision of the ending from the very beginning? If so, why were the brilliant illusions to science, literature and dramatic themes that enveloped the series mysteries set aside for the reunion? The ending resolved none of the major questions. It left viewers to their own thoughts and opinions which split the fan base even more.

CUTTING EDGE SHOWS

The lead actor of the cable television hit show, The Sopranos, has died. The Sopranos, which ran from 2001-2007) was an iconic show that lifted HBO from a movie repeat channel to one of edgy, original series programming. Critics believed that this series opened the door for shows that pushed past the four major networks standards or practices.

It took the standard mob boss and gave him normal family and interpersonal issues and faults that the character recognized and tried to overcome. The series had a devoted following of fans. And it came to a controversial-crashing halt.

 The main character is sitting a New Jersey diner with his family. The dark mood of the drama increases as mysterious people come into the diner. But suddenly, and without warning, the screen goes black. The series ends with no resolution but a cliffhanger of what the heck was about to happen?  It lead to mass speculation, fan outrage, and insider admiration that such a popular series would just let the viewers make up their own ending to their show (in their own minds). (It was reported at the time, TPTB on LOST really liked the Sopranos ending.)

There were some cross-over themes between the series.

One was Faith and Reason. The mob boss had religious teachings, but did not believe in his faith. He rather lived by his own code of conduct. He knew that it was not reasonable or rational to front the piety of faith to family and friends but at the same time do terrible things in the name of honor.

Another was that guilt is a true motivator of actions. Tony Soprano did feel guilt. He did have personal issues that he wanted to resolve. Those conflicts led him to bare his soul to his therapist.  In the LOST world, regret probably bound the main characters together more than simple guilt. The same internal depression of knowing that you are doing something wrong but have no will power to change it has to wear down one's soul over time.

If you combine the internal conflict between one's raised beliefs to one's actual criminal behavior which brings about repressed guilt, you have a simmering "war" within one's self. Which could be the symbolic mystery of the LOST grave warning that "a war is coming" to the island. It was not really a massive conflict between Ben and Widmore over the control of the island, but as some fans accept, the vague notions of Jack accepting his role as a leader to resolve issues he had with his father.

In the Americanization of the mob life, it is the background of the ethnic neighborhoods, the culture, the economic factors and the lure of the lifestyle of being a gangster. the question was always present whether did Tony choose his own path or was his fate to lead a crime family. In the backgrounds of the LOST main characters, there was little connection in ethic, culture, education or economic factors that would have bound them together by fate to come to the island, battle smoke monsters, or allegedly save the world. TPTB may believe that everything and everyone is connected spiritually but in the mob world it was respect and honor among thieves was an overriding connection between gangs.

For the LOST main characters, they appeared to get some form of blissful relief or salvation in the church when the doors opened and they were engulfed in white light. Some have speculated that they were being transported to the next level of the after life or heaven. Tony Soprano's era on TV ended with a black screen. Viewers don't know whether he was seconds away from being riddled with bullets, or served a federal grand jury subpoena, or given a briefcase full of cash. But in both situations, the series did not wrap up with any clear, redemptive moment of truth. For cutting edge shows that wanted to push the characters and story lines to new places, the vague endings still cause pause.

I still believe cutting edge shows need to make a final statement to wrap up the tangled story lines from previous seasons. A great drama has an action packed climax (resolution) and not an inconsequential tangent that leaves the audience wondering . . . .

ENDINGS

The NY Post article discusses the bizarre ending to the HBO megahit show, The Sopranos.

James Gandolfini, the actor who played crime boss Tony Soprano, admitted that he was as confused as everyone else by the finale as set forth in  April’s Vanity Fair.

The ending of the show was set with Tony and his family having dinner, then there is a hint of something about to happen - - - but the screen suddenly goes black. No explanation. No noise. Nothing.

“When I first saw the ending, I said, ‘What the f--k?’” Gandolfini said. “I mean, after all I went through, all this death, and then it’s over like that?”

Many Sopranos fans thought that the black-out ending was a cop-out, a trick or a bad joke on them. When fans invest a lot of time in their favorite shows and characters, then want some resolution.

Gandolfini says he eventually, over time,  came to like  the ending.

"God knows we’ve talked about that ending for five years now — we’re still talking about it. People stop me in the street. ‘Did you get the ending? Did I miss something?’ I thought it was very, very shrewd,” he says.

Shrewd may not clear up the bitterness in some fans minds.

LOST had a different kind of ending, but just as confusing. The idea that the sideways world was a purgatory and the characters were all dead when the producers said for years the show was not about the afterlife stung many die hard fan theorists. They thought they were mislead. All the tangents about science, worm holes, time leaps . . . . were all somehow turned irrelevant filler since they did not play into any resolution in The End.

Now, some fans liked the ending because it brought their favorite characters back together. It was the happy ending many wanted since the pilot episode crash. But it seemed to be the easy way out of a corner painted by the unexplained mysteries and events of the Island.

You could have ended LOST a season before, with Juliet pounding a rock to get Jughead to explode. That would have been "The Sopranos" style ending - - - and fans could still be rationally debating what happened to the characters and the Island if the bomb did or did not explode.  Because, the final season with the Jacob and MIB story arc really did not connect with the prior seasons plot lines, character motivations or continuity, there lies the disappointment for many fans.